Somewhere Maybe the Dream Came True
by 8.Years.Of.Silence
Summary: Sam should have known better, in this weird, fantasy world that wasn't real, that he and Dean would leave behind tomorrow. He should have known better than to go looking, but he just couldn't help it. Season 6, The French Mistake Tag.


_**Summary** : Sam should have known better, in this weird, fantasy world that wasn't real, that he and Dean would leave behind tomorrow. He should have known better than to go looking, but he just couldn't help it. Season 6, Tag to The French Mistake._

 _ **Chapter Warnings** : Bit sad, but nothing else that needs noting._

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 **Somewhere Maybe the Dream Came True**

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The rich cheery door shut with a soft click on silent hinges – well-oiled and loved, unlike almost any place Sam had ever lived in his entire life – and the young man slid his hand away slowly from the wood with a relieved breath. He stood, listless and lost, in the hallway of a house that wasn't his, and yet it sort of was. Could be.

But most definitely wasn't.

Inside that room slept his…well, he supposed it was his wife. Or, at least this version of him that had wife. Sam flushed at the memory of the woman that looked like Ruby pulling him up the stairs and into the master suite. He shouldn't have let things continue so far. That wasn't his wife, and he wasn't her husband, for all that he looked like him. And yet he had let himself pretend, let her continue imagining, for far longer than he should have. It felt wrong (was wrong, he _knew_ ) but she had wasted no time and it had been such a long time for him.

What had ultimately overruled his morals was the look in her eyes, though. Love. This woman loved the version of him that lived in this world. He hadn't seen love – that kind of love – in a woman's eyes as she looked at him since…

Jess.

Maybe because he had never truly loved another woman since Jess. Not like he had loved her, anyway. There had been woman that he could have seen a future with, but not with the life he led. Not with the future that had been destined as his since he was six months old.

Sam glanced back at the closed door, his laptop – well, _Jared's_ laptop – tucked under his arm. She really was beautiful, and kind. Nothing like the demon he had known. He'd never been in love with Ruby; their relationship had been about sex and need and power, never emotion. Not anything positive, at least. And if he put aside the betrayal and anger and shame that her name always summoned within him, Sam could admit that his time with her had been what he'd needed back then. A little bit of fun amid ultimate self-destruction. Exactly what he'd been seeking the first time he let himself fall into her trap.

It was weird to see Ruby now, loving and smiling and so human. Jared Padaleki was a lucky man to have someone whose love shown so clearly in her eyes. Sam supposed it wasn't uncommon for actors to meet on set and date. It happened back in his world too, for all the little he paid attention to that part of his world.

But he wasn't Jared Padaleki, and seeing that deep love on another's woman's face was what had led him to this moment now. Sneaking into the office down the hall in that massive mansion, Sam opened the computer. It had taken him and Dean both a while to figure out Jared Padaleki's password, but they'd eventually gotten into the device so they could purchase the ingredients for their return spell. Now, he pulled up the internet browser and typed in his name in this dimension. The IMDB page for _Supernatural_ was one of the first entries to pull up (still so weird, and so, _so_ wrong), and Sam clicked on it.

His picture showed up in the cast column, clean-shaven and smiling at the camera in front of an advert backdrop. Dean's – _Jenson's_ – picture was right below him, a more dramatic shot that Sam supposed was a promo for the show itself. It was weird to see them, his an almost candid portrait he had no memory of taking, and Dean looking like the cover of a romance novel as he stared down the lens.

Sam clicked on the full cast option.

It took a while to find her. She hadn't been in any recent episode, and he had to go a good way down the cast list before Sam spotted her smiling face. He barely recognized her, hair and makeup done up to match a golden gown. It must have been taken at a red carpet event.

Adrianne Palicki.

She didn't look like an Adrianne to him, but, then, he supposed she wouldn't. Sam clicked on her full biography and his screen filled with pictures of her. He fought back a terrible sound that gripped his throat like a vice that held on tight.

So that's what Jess would have looked like if she'd lived past twenty one.

She was gorgeous, all smiles and so full of life. In this world, she was apparently in a TV-show about super heroes. Sam clicked on her character name to see a photo of Jess- Adrianne in a full Government Agent getup, which consisted of a lot more leather and skin tight spandex than you'd think would be standard for a government-issued uniform. But that was TV for you.

He clicked on a video clip, only to laugh out loud as Adrianne (not _Jess_ ) danced around on screen like a certified ninja as she laid the hurt on some guy who was clearly a minion, sweeping the floor with him. Sam's smile might have been a little watery. Okay, a lot watery. She was a total badass.

The hunter closed his eyes and shut the laptop. He couldn't watch more. It had been a bad idea looking her up, he knew that. He'd known it long before he'd grabbed the computer and snuck from his – _Jared's_ – bedroom. But he'd needed to know. He'd needed to know she had lived in this world, that she hadn't shared the fate of her alternate.

It hurt, because that wasn't his Jess. But it would have hurt worse if she'd died in this world as well. It gave Sam a little hope that maybe there were other worlds out there where Jessica Moore had lived.

He put the laptop away, knowing he needed to get some sleep before he and Dean tried to get back home tomorrow. He thought about finding a guest bedroom, but to be honest he didn't want to be alone. He didn't want to sit in a dark room with nothing but the image of Adrienne Palicki's face flashing across his eyelids and an endless stream of _what ifs_ that ended nowhere that wasn't painful.

So he went back to that bedroom that wasn't his, to that bed that wasn't his and the beautiful, loving woman who wasn't his, either. Sam Winchester – _not Jared Padaleki_ – climbed into the bed with Genevieve ( _Gen_ ) and tried not to feel guilty at the sheer comfort he got from her presence. She let out a content noise in her sleep and rolled into him. And Sam kind of knew why this Jared guy loved her.

It really had been too long since he'd shared his bed with someone, slept with them in his arms and felt comforted by their presence. His conscience was tomorrow's problem. Tonight he would allow himself this one, small respite.

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 _ **A/N:**_ _Agents of Shield did not air until 2014, while Supernatural season 6 was 2011, but I decided to bend time a little, since it was while watching that show that I thought of this little ficlet_


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